Help! My fish are all dying

[fluttermoth]

I'm about to just forget this whole thing and throw a goldfish in a bowl (as they seem to live years that way for me).

I see our other members are helping you with your problems but, as goldfish lover, I feel I have to comment on this.

Please don't keep a goldfish in a bowl again. Just because goldfish can survive in a bowl (they are very, very tough) doesn't mean it's okay to do. Goldfish have just as much right to a properly sized, filtered tank as any other, more expensive fish

 

[Tigernewbie]

I see our other members are helping you with your problems but, as goldfish lover, I feel I have to comment on this.

Please don't keep a goldfish in a bowl again. Just because goldfish can survive in a bowl (they are very, very tough) doesn't mean it's okay to do. Goldfish have just as much right to a properly sized, filtered tank as any other, more expensive fish

I absolutely agree. It was more of me venting. Back before I knew about humane and proper fish keeping I could keep a goldfish alive no problem. Now that I have a big aquarium and fancy filter and "happy water" chemicals, I can't even keep my water right let alone a fish. No worries!

 

[Tigernewbie]

Thank you so much!! I want to keep these alive so bad!

Maybe too soon to say, but my tiger barbs came out of hiding!

 

[Karen_2656]

Good, keep changing your water [emoji4][emoji4]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Tigernewbie]

How do I know when I can slow Down water changes? How many days should I do the 50% changes?

 

[Byron]

How do I know when I can slow Down water changes? How many days should I do the 50% changes?

Essjay answered this and I did too (post #12 for me). Test daily, when zero for both your water changes can cease, but test for a few days after just in case.

 

[Tigernewbie]

Thank you so much!! I want to keep these alive so bad!

Maybe too soon to say, but my tiger barbs came out of hiding!

I would recommend a larger water change, about half the tank. That will cut the ammonia/nitrite, whichever, in half to start with. Then use Prime for that volume, or a bit more won't hurt here. Then tomorrow, if ammonia or nitrite still show, another 50% W/C with Prime.

There will be no ammonia or nitrite in the fresh water obviously, so the detoxifying aspect of Prime will work on what is in the tank, and half/half achieves this without overdosing Prime.

To clarify, you mean to treat the fresh water with prime before adding it or no?

 

[Essjay]

If you add the new water from a bucket, the easiest way is to add Prime to the bucket of new water at the dose rate for the amount of water in the bucket. If that is an inconvenient amount to measure, get a babies' medicine dosing syringe (in the UK you'll get funny looks if you ask for just a syringe ).
But if you add the new water with a hosepipe, add all the Prime needed by the new water to the tank as soon as you start adding the new water.

Test the tank water every day and do a water change if ammonia and/or nitrite are above zero. Make a note of the test results because when they've stayed at zero without doing a water change for 7 days, the tank will be cycled for the fish in the tank now and you can get more - but not a lot of fish at one go. It takes a day or two for the bacteria to catch up with the ammonia from new fish, and adding a lot of fish means a lot more new ammonia and the bacteria will take several days to catch up.

 

[Byron]

Maybe too soon to say, but my tiger barbs came out of hiding!

To clarify, you mean to treat the fresh water with prime before adding it or no?

The Tiger Barb improvement is not a surprise to those of us who do water changes at the first sign of any trouble. Nothing, absolutely nothing, benefits fish like a large water change. In your situation here, it is diluting/reducing/eliminating the toxin (ammonia, nitrite) and the fish are responding accordingly.

You can treat the fresh water in buckets before adding, if using buckets to change water. On my tanks I use a Python connected to the tap, as water changes on large tanks with buckets would not work. With a Python, which delivers tap water direct into the aquarium from the tap, I squirt or drop in the measured amount of conditioner as I begin to fill, or just before. Here you are using Prime to dechlorinate (the fresh water) but also to deal with ammonia or nitrite in the tank water.

Edit. Essjay was typing when I was, and we are on the same page.

 

[Andrewaquatics]

Hi keep your water changes to once a week doing it to often gets rid of good bacteria and do a 50% water change your levels are fine. Is your water town water because if it isn't and it's not treated with çhlorine or anything then don't worry about putting that prime in. What a lot of people don't realize when they get new fish they dump the fish and the water that they came in into the tank and don't treat the tank after they put them in so do not put the water that they came in into the tank and when you put them in use melafix to treat the water as soon as you put them in. And keep and eye on them because the fish could be sick when you got them and if they don't seem to take right away keep putting melafix in every single day with a 50% water change every week. I have not had a problem since I have been doing this. I would strongly recommend trying this. But when you do a water change make sure you vacuum your substrate to get out all of the uneaten food and fish waste. You can also do that everyday using a net to get the bigger stuff that you can see also keeping the light off will help to keep the bad stuff down like bacteria parasites ammonia and same with a little bit colder temperatures will help with that also like 74-75.

 

[Andrewaquatics]

A easy way to measure how much of a dose to put in is to measure the tank from where there is no water from the top of the tank down to the water level then the length of the tank then the width and divide those 3 numbers by 231 and you will get the exact amount of gallons of water that you are going to be putting back in.